Working title: The Wisdom of Understanding Reality through Interdimensional Channels (a primer on Classical Worldviews and their application in Sound-Empowered Holistic Education) Secondary Section: Classical Chinese Medicine and Future Medical Technology
Excerpt from Chapter Two:
MultiverSound: The Fundamental Coding of the Cosmos
地氣上齊，天氣下降，陰陽相摩，天地相蕩，故之以風雨，動之以四時，煖之以日月，而百化興焉。如此，則樂者天地之和也。
“The Qi of Earth Ascends Above, while the Qi of Heaven Descends below. Yin and Yang rub against each other, and Heaven and Earth jostle up against each other. Their drumming creates peals of thunder; their pressing, wind and rain; their movement, the four seasons; their warming, the sun and moon; and so the hundred transformations arise therein. Just like this, music constitutes the harmony of Heaven & Earth.”
Many cultural mythologies speak of a world birthed by sound. In The Healing Power of Sound, Mitchell Gaynor (a medical doctor who uses singing bowls and chanting in his oncology practice) shares the following creation myths (2012):
In Christianity: “God said, “Let us make man in our image . . . “ (Gen. 1:26) “The will of the divine is manifested through the power of that simple declarative statement, and the universe was transformed by the creation.”
In Hinduism: “The Vedic texts depict Prajapati, the creator of all beings, as he is hatched from the cosmic egg and utters the words that created the sky, the heavens, and the earth: “Bhuh, Bhuvah, Svar.” The creator speaks and sound is the beginning of creation.” “The Popul Vuh,” the majestic Mayan Language poem that recalls the creation myths of the Mayan people, describes the arrival of men on earth through the power of word: “They were not born of woman, nor were they begotten by the Creator, nor by the Forefathers. Only by a miracle, by means of incantation they were created and made by the Creator.”
Countless similar creation myths - those of worlds borne of sound - exist in Native American cultures, amongst Australian Aborigines (“who conceived of song as both a map and direction-finder”), and in many other cultures across the history of time (Gaynor, 2012).
According to these ancient traditions, as the first sounds echoed through different dimensions, they created the world of stars & planets, seasons and weather, universal values, thoughts and emotions, biological functions and their associated organs.
In different cultures across the world, deliberate attempts were made to categorize the fundamental vibrations of the universe, for purposes of health, healing, cosmic harmony and, in some cases - control of the people (usually, for good!) (Brindley, 2012).
In Ancient China, texts dating as far back as 1250 BC describe several notation systems: a) The 5 tones of the pentatonic scale (approximate C, D, E, G, and A; or F#, G#, A#, C# and D#, by some research), associated with the 5 Elements (or more accurately translated 5 Phases) of Earth, Metal, Wood, Fire & Water, respectively.
These tone approximations were found by measuring the frequencies produced by imperial bells from different eras (Lloyd 2002).
b) 12 Pitch Standards equivalent to the modern chromatic scale (C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B), corresponding to a system known as the 12 Earthly Branches, symbols that described the energetics of the planets and sun upon the Earth, as well as 12 distinct stages of growth and decay as manifest in the life cycle of a plant, in the 12 months of the year, the 12 two-hour periods in a day, and as modeled in the 12 Organ Systems (and related Channel Networks) of Chinese Medicine. The pitch standards were set by cutting bamboo pipes of a very specific length.
According to the work of many scholars, the ancient Chinese valued harmony (hé 和) with the Cosmos, believing that Attunement to the heavens would create harmony amongst the people; believing that this attunement that could be facilitated through the use of music in official ceremonies (lǐ 禮), and in design of popular virtue-carrying music (Brindley, 2012). Accordingly, the tuning of the bells and the setting of pitch standards experienced variation over time to accommodate changes in the positions of the stars and planets (whose influence could be calculated and encoded into musical, harmonizing frequencies).
In the system of 12 pitch standards, the tone “Dà lǚ” 大呂 (approximate C#) resonated with the Earthly Branch Chǒu (丑), associated with the time from 1-3am, the last month of winter (approx. early Jan- early Feb), the ox animal, the mother archetype (time when a seed is being nourished beneath the earth, akin to baby in a womb), the Yìjīng* Symbol Hexagram 19 (“Approach," depicted below with two yang-solid lines (and 4 yin-broken lines - mirroring the return of the light the after winter solstice), and the Chinese Medicine Liver Organ (Kuttner, 1965; Heiner, 2021).
In my own research, the tone C# in the second octave (88 key piano, ~ 69.3 hz) resonates more with the physical liver than the same tone in other octaves.
Post-Script: How do we empirically test these theories?**
*Foot Note 8. The Yì Jīng 易經 (commonly transliterated as “I-Ching”) is a classical Chinese text that characterizes the process of change into 64 patterns, represented by the 6-line hexagrams (composed of a mixture of yin-broken and yang-solid lines). The Yì Jīng 易經, or “book of changes,” as it has been commonly translated, has been studied as wisdom text by ancient and modern thinkers, ranging from Confucius to Niels Bohr (quantum physicist) to Carl Jung. The theoretical foundations of the Yì Jīng 易經 are more deeply discussed in a later chapter.
**Foot Note 9. The authors can think of several ways to empirically test these theories (not that they need this testing to be useful). In terms of resonance, one could assess the impact of certain tones on physiological organ systems (ie hormones released, autonomic activation; electrical rhythms, and venous/arterial blood flow); in addition, one could also assess mental-emotional states using subjective reporting (e.g. feelings of expansiveness and emotional release associated with increase in Chinese Medicine (CM) Liver function); all of which could help confirm or deny the correspondences posited by ancient peoples. It is also possible - as we have done - to consult the already well-established knowledge base to find consistency within these theories . . . e.g. the common hallucinogenic substances used in many shamanic cultures to obtain altered states of consciousness (for purposes of healing, health promotion, and spiritual development), often directly increase metabolic activity in the liver, where they are metabolized (the case for most medicines), partially confirming the Chinese Medical connections between the Liver and the Expansive Energy of the Wood Element/Phase; although we have no further to look than the liver’s biomedical functions to also confirm this observation - circulation of water via albumin regulation, circulation of blood and nutrition to the extremities, the production of bile to aid with digestive processes (and thus “course the intestines”), and the production, storage and distribution of nutrients essential to chemical and neural conduction across the entire body.
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